Tag Archives: motivate

An Excerpt, with some minor edits, from a note I was sending someone hoping to help them in a tough spot. I wanted to share it here as well, just in case someone reads it that could gain something from it.

You have been searching for answers and feel that you are not getting them. I can promise you that there will be a day when you look back on this time and will be able to see blessings that you cannot see now. You will be able to see where His hand was guiding you. You will understand the Why. Why you had to go through this trial. Why it wasn’t easier. And that is how you will make a difference in the world for many, many people. There are people near you that need you now. There are people nowhere close to you now that are going to need you. Everyone is dealing with their own struggles and challenges and they need help. Most can’t be helped by someone that has the book smarts on the struggle. But the person who can make a difference, the person who can change their life, the person who can save them is the one who has been there. The one who has been in their shoes and has conquered that challenge. My friend lost a baby boy and a brother in a short period. Nobody could really help her through those difficult times that hadn’t been through something similar. But now, she can take those tragic experiences and help many others going through their own tragic times. I often recall an old Young Woman’s theme, “I can do hard things.” Every hard thing that you have pushed yourself through, whether it was in a relationship, a sport, in business or something else has prepared you for something you will go through and deal with at some point in the future. Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” You’ve been through hard things in the past and it has strengthened you. You are going to go through hard things throughout your life and they will continue to strengthen you. Right now may be the hardest thing that you have had to deal with up to this point of your life. You can do it. You will grow from it. You are amazing. YOU are going to make a difference in the world!

“I’ve learned that in order to be happy in life, you need to figure out what your talents and strengths are… then run with them! Don’t settle for anything less than what your abilities can get you.” – Trey Lewellen in Expert Secrets (Click below for your FREE copy)

I listened to Ed Mylett’s interview with Charlie Rocket today and loved it. Charlie’s story is so interesting and motivational. From discovering Travis Porter, launching Two Chainz to inspiring Nike’s recent Kaepernick commercial. At 5’8″ and 305lbs he decided he was an athlete and ten months later completed the Iron Man competition. He’s brilliant, he’s a thinker. He teaches so much. I just wanted to share the interview for others to be able to watch.

High performers can do almost anything they set their heart and their mind to. But not every mountain is worth the climb. What differentiates high performers from others is their critical eye in figuring out what is going to be meaningful to their life experience. They spend more of their time doing things that they find meaningful, and this makes them happy.

One of the most iconic sales platforms in our culture is the infomercial.

Laugh all you want, but almost everyone has seen one and almost everyone has been tempted – at one point or another – to order that set of knives, that new exercise machine or some gadget to make everyday life easier.

“But wait there’s more…” has become part of the fabric of our culture.

Why?

Because it works.

You may know Kevin Harrington from the hit television show, Shark Tank, but before he was a Shark, he was one of the early pioneers of the infomercial.

That’s right, he pioneered “but wait, there’s more!”.

Kevin took sales secrets and techniques from the likes of Zig Ziglar, combined it with his own experience and used it to sell over $5 Billion (yes, with a “B”) in products — much of it through infomercials.

And now Kevin is revealing his secret Sales Success Cheat Sheet — for FREE! Today is Day 2 that he is offering it, get it while you can!

Kevin says that every single successful sale follows this 3-step process — and he had 5 Billion pieces of evidence to back that up!

If you want to get your idea, product or service in front of more people, do what the masters do.
Get the cheat sheet today, along with a simple fill-in-the-blank worksheet so you can customize Kevin’s 3-step process to your unique idea, product or service.

Whatever your brand stands for, you have to deliver on the promise. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver, and deliver everything you promise. That’s the only way you’ll ever control your brand. And beware: brands always mean something. If you don’t define what the brand means, a competitor will.

There’s a lot of great stuff in this book. Highly recommend reading it and then reading it again. Make your own notes and occasionally refer back to them or come back here and read these notes again. There are a number of great things that you’ll be reminded of and will help spark new ideas to grow yourself and your business.

People

Avoid taking on someone else’s legacy

If you are in the mood to buy a new business – wait. It can take a long time to change a business culture. Are you sure you wouldn’t be better off starting one from scratch?

In business, someone who can stay cool and calm under pressure is an asset.

There’s no rule book. the past is the past. We can’t preserve it

small, compact companies are, generally better run

Put people together in a way that will have them bouncing ideas off each other, befriending each other, and taking care of each other, and suddenly they are coming to you, not with gripes and problems, but with solutions and great ideas.

Given the right conditions, exceptional people will reveal themselves

There’s another thing about teams: they don’t last forever

When the business lets you, shake things up a little

The best manager is someone who cares about people and who is genuinely interested and wants to bring out the best in them

A manager should basically be a considerate person who is as interested in the switchboard operator and the person who cleans the lavatories as he or she is in the fellow managers

A self-disciplined employee will have the patience to conduct routine business routinely, the talent to respond exceptionally to exceptional circumstances, and the wisdom to know the difference between the two

you can’t dictate attitudes from on high. All you can do is hire the right people and empower them to sort things out as they happen.

If someone has paid you for something, and it goes wrong, being cagey or defensive will kill you stone dead

If someone has a lousy experience at your hands, they will warn people

If you are able to sort out your customers’ problems better than they expected, then they will be your loyal friend for life

Brand

Befriending one’s enemy is a good rule for business – and life

A brand always means something, and ultimately you can control the meaning of your brand only through what you deliver to customers

Turnover can be huge, but it is the profit margin that matters

I learned another key fact about running a business: try to have a plan B

Publicity is absolutely critical. You have to get your brand out and about

A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a full-page ad, and a damn sight cheaper

it is sometimes better to follow a pioneer than be a pioneer

Maintaining a consistent tone in the face of rapid growth was a key requirement

You can’t restructure culture. If you’ve burnt people, if you’ve killed their enthusiasm or commitment, then changing office space or putting a few more dollars in their pocket will not unduly affect the culture that exists

Whatever your brand stands for, you have to deliver on the promise. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver, and deliver everything you promise. That’s the only way you’ll ever control your brand. And beware: brands always mean something. If you don’t define what the brand means, a competitor will.

Delivery

Don’t waste your precious time. Phone calls and emails can eat your day. Don’t let them. No one will think less of you for getting to the point.

I advise every owner of a company to keep a notebook and jot down the things that need doing

You must never forget that every change ushers in unforeseen consequences

Success one day does not give you a free lunch every day thereafter

We’ve started, so we’ll finish

Never imagine that you are immune from big events. Make your small decisions in the light of the bigger picture, and you are at least pointing your craft in the right direction to ride out any storm

One business mantra remains embedded in my brain – protect the downside

Remember to communicate, and pay attention to detail

Don’t be afraid of changing your bank if they are unreasonable. Banks are not for life. But don’t put it off till the last minute

Out of recession, new ideas and new business often grow

If you are a late entrant to the market, you need to be radically different to win over customers.

If you rip off the customer, then you will destroy the integrity of the brand

When you’re first thinking through an idea, it’s important not to get bogged down in complexity

You can never go too far wrong by thinking like a customer who’s new to the business

It’s easy – too easy, in fact – to relinquish your responsibility for your idea to experts. This is almost always a mistake, because experts are only experts in their field. They’re not experts in your idea. At this stage, the only person qualified to assess your idea is you

You need to flesh out your own ideas. You need to do your own research. You need to take responsibility for how you plan to turn an idea into action

Keep a cool head. You’re in business to deliver change, and if you succeed, the chances that no one will get hurt are virtually zero. This is the rough and tumble of business. Be sportsmanlike, play to win, and stay friends with people wherever possible. If you do fall out with someone, ring them a year later and take them out to dinner. Befriend your enemies.

Being a well funded company puts you at a tremendous advantage

Learning from Mistakes and Setbacks

Never do anything that means you can’t sleep at night

You can’t protect yourself against the unexpected, so you need to keep your house in as good an order as you can. If disaster strikes, you don’t want to find yourself doing twelve things at once and misprioritising them in public. It’s vital, therefore, that you take control of your internal business risks – the ones you can influence.

I think it is counterproductive to be ruthless. You’ve got to treat people as you would yourself, or better

You definitely should get the best people around you when confronted with a serious problem. Don’t try to deal with it all by yourself. Don’t be afraid to seek help and advice.

If you drive down the retail price fast enough when you are the dominant player, you never allow anyone else to catch up because they can’t make enough money. It requires the dominant player to be brave, because it can mean cannibalizing your existing sales by dropping the retail price. (i.e. Apple and the iPod)

Protect your reputation. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes

If you’re hurt, lick your wounds and get up again. If you’ve given it your absolute best, it’s time to move forward.

Innovation

The best, most solid way out of a crisis in a changing market is through experiment and adaption.

Innovation is what you get wen you capitalize on luck, when you get up from behind your desk and go and see where ideas and people lead you.

Entrepreneurs and Leadership

True leadership must include the ability to distinguish between real and apparent danger.

You need to understand the challenges to your enterprise and face up to them. Equally, you have to resist the temptation to overreact at the first sign of trouble.

Every business plan should include: “This company will have lots and lots of parties and social get-togethers.”

The creator’s job is to find someone with expertise who understands the vision and is prepared to follow the path.

If you can keep the business relatively small, people will know each other within the organisation and feel like part of the team.

Decent leadership is about explaining clearly and unemotionally why a decision has been taken.

Failure is not giving things a go in the first place.

Only a fool never changes his mind.

DON’T BRING ME YOUR PROBLEMS – BRING ME THE SOLUTIONS

Social Responsibility

It is possible to turn a profit while making the world a better place.

What can you do to make a difference?

One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never! – Sir Winston Churchill

Don’t forget to listen

Epilogue

It is important to look for one’s strengths – to try to excel at what you’re good at.

Many of these top 17 books are some that I have already read. But for those that I have not, they are next on my list. If you’re interested in any of them click on their title or join Audible and listen to them. Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks

Below are a copy of my notes from Tools of Titans. For a book of over 600 pages I really could have taken a lot more notes but these are the things that stood out to me the most and things I wanted to be able to remember. This book is filled with “the tactics, routines, and habits of billionaires, icons, and world-class performers.” I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first ordered the book but I thought it was an interesting read and would recommend it to others. If you enjoy The Tim Ferriss Show, you’ll definitely enjoy the book. The people in this book are absolutely amazing.

Throughout these notes I’ve included links for the people that you may want to learn or read more about. Just click the person’s name or highlighted note and you’ll find more information there. To get your copy of Tools of Titans, click HERE.

Top Quotes

…you don’t have to wait to start something. So if you’re planning to do something with your life, if you have a 10-year plan of how to get there, you should ask: Why can’t you do it in 6 months?— Peter Thiel pg 232 This was probably my most impactful quote in the entire book

When you’re thinking of how to make your business bigger, it’s tempting to try to think all the big thoughts, the world-changing, massive-action plans. But please know that it’s often the tiny details that really thrill someone enough to make them tell all their friends about you. — Derek Sivers pg 185

in business and in life — you don’t have to be on the extreme, but you have to ask for things, and you have to put yourself out there. — Noah Kagan pg 325

I now have a very simple metric I use: Are you working on something that can change the world? Yes or no? The answer for 99.99999% of people is no. I think we need to be training people on how to change the world. — Peter Diamandis pg 369

If you want to be tougher mentally, it is simple: Be Tougher. don’t meditate on it. — Jocko Willink pg 412

“If you have a 10-year plan of how to get [somewhere], you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months?”

You [have] the ability to renegotiate your reality all along.

while the world is gold mine, you need to go riffing in other people’s heads to unearth riches.

Just Remember Two Principles

Success, however you define it, is achievable if you collect the right field-tested beliefs and habits.

The superheroes you have in your mind (idols, icons, titans, billionaires, etc.) are nearly all walking flaws who’ve maximized 1 or 2 strengths. Humans are imperfect creatures. You don’t “succeed” because you have no weaknesses; you succeed because you find your unique strengths and focus on developing habits around them…. Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. The heroes in this book are no different. Everyone struggles.

Kids don’t do what you say. They do what they see. How you live your life is their example.

Is that a dream, or a goal? Because a dream is something you fantasize about that will probably never happen. A goal is something you set a plan for, work toward, and achieve.

Why would I be wound up? I’m either ready or I’m not. Worrying about it right now ain’t gonna change a damn thing. Right? Whatever’s gonna happen is gonna happen. I’ve either done everything I can to be ready for this, or I haven’t.

A blue collar work ethic married to indomitable will. It is literally that simple. Nothing interferes. Nothing can sway you from your purpose. Once the decision is made, simply refuse to budge. Refuse to compromise.

We get behind leaders who stir our feelings. In the early days of your venture, if you find someone diving too deep into the numbers, that means they are struggling to find a reason to deeply care about you.

Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call ‘life’ was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

My goal is not to fail fast. My goal is to succeed over the long run. They are not the same thing.

To do original work: It’s not necessary to know something nobody else knows. It is necessary to believe something few other people believe.

It’s not what you know, it’s what you do consistently — Tony Robbins pg 210

When you’re earlier in your career, I think the best strategy is to just say ‘yes’ to everything. Every little gig. You just never know what are the lottery tickets.

don’t be a donkey. You can do everyone you want to do. You just need foresight and patience.

Even when everything is going terrible, and I have no reason to be confident, I just decide to be. — We are whatever we pretend to be.

When you’re thinking of how to make your business bigger, it’s tempting to try to think all the big thoughts, the world-changing, massive-action plans. But please know that it’s often the tiny details that really thrill someone enough to make them tell all their friends about you.

Investing in yourself is the most important investment you’’ ever make in your life…There’s no financial investment that’ll ever match it, because if you develop more skill, more ability, more insight, more capacity, that’s what’s going to really provide economic freedom…It’s those skill sets that really make that happen.

“If you let your learning lead to knowledge, you become a fool. If you let your learning lead to action, you become wealthy.” — Jim Rohn

The reason you are suffering is you’re focused on yourself

Casey Neistat pg 217

TF: How can you make your bucket-list dreams pay for themselves by sharing them?… If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.

What is the ultimate quantification of success? For me, it’s not how much time you spend doing what you love. It’s how little time you spend doing what you hate.

…you don’t have to wait to start something. So if you’re planning to do something with your life, if you have a 10-year plan of how to get there, you should ask: Why can’t you do it in 6 months?

What I prefer over trends is a sense of mission. that you are working on a unique problem that people are not solving elsewhere.

The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.

tell ten people, show ten people, share it with ten people; ten people who already trust you and already like you. If they don’t tell anybody else, it’s not that good and you should start over. If they do tell other people, you’re on your way.

Because the fact is, there are plenty of countries on Earth where there are people who are willing to be obedient and work harder for less money than us. So we cannot out-obedience the competition. Therefore, we have to out-lead or out-solve the other people… The way you teach your kids to solve interesting problems is to give them interesting problems to solve. And then, don’t criticize them when they fail.

The Law of Category pg 276

If you didn’t get into the prospect’s mind first, don’t give up hope. Find a new category you can be first in. It’s not as difficult as you might think.

Sometimes you need to stop doing things you love in order to nurture the one thing that matters most.

It’s not about ides, it’s about making ideas happen.

Truth is, young creative minds don’t need more ideas, they need to take more responsibility with the ideas they’ve already got.

How to Earn Your Freedom pg 362

The more we associate experience with cash value, the more we think that money is what we need to live. And the more we associate money with life, the more we convince ourselves that we’re too poor to buy our freedom.

I now have a very simple metric I use: Are you working on something that can change the world? Yes or no? The answer for 99.99999% of people is no. I think we need to be training people on how to change the world.

we’re here today having this conversation because I did not give up. I’ll leave it at that.

…you should have a running list of three people that you’re always watching: someone senior to you that you want to emulate, a peer who you think is better at the job than you are and who you respect, and someone subordinate who’s doing the job you did — one, two, or three years ago — better than you did it.

Memento mori — remember that you’re gong to die. It’s a great way to remember to live.

To me, success is you make your own slot

Bryan Callen pg 483

I think you should try to slay dragons. I don’t care how big the opponent is. We read about and admire the people who did things that were basically considered to be impossible. That’s what makes the world a better place to live.

When you’re told that something is impossible, is that the end of the conversation, or does that start a second dialogue in your mind, how to get around whoever it is that’s just told you that you can’t do something?

TF: “These ideas” = having a “secret” as described in Peter Thiel’s Zero to One: knowing or believing something that the rest of the world thinks is nonsense.

Very often it’s a question of being the first person to connect things that have never been connected before.

8 Tactics For Dealing With Haters

It doesn’t matter how many people don’t get it. What matters is how many people do.

10% of people will find a way to take anything personally. Expect it and treat it as math.

When in doubt, starve it of oxygen.

If you respond, don’t over-apologize

You can’t reason someone out of soothing they didn’t reason themselves into.

Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity. You’ll avoid the tough decisions, and you’ll avoid confronting the people who need to be confronted. — Colin Powell

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid — Epictetus

To do anything remotely interesting, you need to train yourself to handle — or even enjoy — criticism

Living well is the best revenge. — George Herbert

Rainn Wilson pg 543

dig deeper. We can make the world a better place. We can ask more of ourselves. We can do more for others. I think that our life is a journey… Dig deep on your journey and the world will benefit from it.

Naval Ravikant pg 548

If you want to be successful, surround yourself with people who are more successful than you are, but if you want to be happy, surround yourself with people who are less successful than you are.

There’s a theory that I call ‘the five chimps theory.’ In zoology, you can predict the mood and behavior patters of any chimp by which five chimps they hang out with the most. Choose your five chimps carefully.

Free education is abundant, all over the internet, it’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.

TF: “The hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It’s the same thing – fear – but it’s what you do with it that matters.” Cut D’Amato (Mike Tyson’s legendary first coach)

When I had the opportunity, did I choose courage over comfort?

If I’m not a little bit nauseous when I’m done, I probably didn’t show up like I should have shown up.

Be clear that your ladder is leaning against the right building.

Testing The “Impossible”: 17 Questions That Changed My Life pg 594

What if I did the opposite for 48 hours?

What do I spend a silly amount of money on? How might I scratch my own itch?

What would I do/have/be if I had $10 million? What’s my real TMI?

What are the worst things that could happen? Could I get back here?

If I could only work 2 hours per week on my business, what would I do?

What if I let them make decisions up to $100? $500? $1,000?

To get huge, good things done, you need to be okay with letting the small, bad things happen.

People’s IQs seem to double as soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them.

Whats the least crowded channel?

What if I couldn’t pitch my product directly?

People don’t like being sold products, but we all like being told stories. Work on the latter.

What if I created my own real-world MBA?

Do I need to make it back the way I lost it?

What if I could only subtract to solve problems?

What might I put in place to allow me to go off the grid for 4 to 8 weeks, with no phone or email?

Am I hunting antelope or field mice?

The analogy of the field mice and the antelope. A lion is fully capable of capturing, killing, and eating a field mouse. But it turns out that the energy required to do so exceeds the caloric content of the mouse itself. So a lion that spent it’s day hunting and eating field mice would slowly starve to death. A lion can’t live on field mice. A lion needs antelope. Antelope are big animals. They take more speed and strength to capture and kill, and once killed, they provide a feast for the lion and her pride. A lion can live a long and happy life on a diet of antelope. The distinction is important Are you spending all your time and exhausting all your energy catching field mice? In the short term it might give you a nice, rewarding feeling. But in the long run you’re going to die. So ask yourself at the end of the day, “Did I spend today chasing mice or hunting antelope?”

Another way I often approach this is to look at my do-do list and ask: “Which one of these, if done, would render all the rest either easier or completely irrelevant?’

Could it be that everything is fine and complete as is?

What would this look like if it were easy?

How can I throw money at this problem? How can I “waste” money to improve the quality of my life?

If you’ve got enough money to solve the problem, you don’t have the problem

I have a lot of conversations with people who want to start their own thing, and one of my favorite questions to ask is, ‘Is this an itch, or is it burning?’ If it is just an itch, it is not sufficient. It gets to this point of how badly you really want it. For me, I burned to boats. there was no way I was going to get a job. Failure was never an option. I had to make this work.

Life is not waiting for the storm to pass, it’s learning how to dance in the rain.

When things are going bad, don’t get all bummed out, don’t get startled, don’t get frustrated. No. Just look at the issue and say. “Good.”

Accept reality, but focus on the solution. Take that issue, take that setback, take that problem, and turn it into something good. Go forward. And, if you are part of a team, that attitude will spread throughout.

Many of these top 17 books are some that I have already read. But for those that I have not, they are next on my list. If you’re interested in any of them click on their title above or join Audible to have the opportunity to listen to them during your commute, while you exercise or any other time. Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks

A couple of weeks ago I had a friend suggest that I read the book On Fire: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life by John O’Leary. It’s a great book that I didn’t want to put down. I was amazed and inspired by O’Leary’s story which really makes the reader think and reflect on their own lives and what drives them.

When John O’Leary was nine years old he was nearly killed in a devastating house fire that he had caused. With burns on 100% of his body he should not have survived. He tells his unimaginable story and the impact others had on him that gave him the desire to fight for his life.

We all have our challenges in life, some are a lot tougher than others. How we face those challenges and the decisions we make will direct the outcome of your life. Some just want to give up and quit rather than face their problem.

Read On Fire. O’Leary helps us to see that we can choose our path and decide the direction of our life regardless of the challenges we face.

One of Henrie Ford’s most inspiring stories comes from when he decided that he wanted to produce his famous V-8 motor. The design was put on paper but all of his engineers agreed that it was impossible to cast an eight cylinder engine block in one piece. To this, Ford said, “produce it anyway.” So his engineers went to work. Months passed by with no success. Soon it had been a full year and the engineers answer to Ford was that it was still “Impossible.”

He told his engineers to stay on the job no matter how long it took. He wanted it and he was going to have it! Then one day as if by a stroke of magic, they discovered the secret and Ford had his V-8 motor.

There is so much to be learned from this story. One lesson could be about desire. Henry Ford knew exactly what he wanted and he was determined to get it. But I want to talk about Persistence.

per·sist·ence

pərˈsistəns/

firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.

Henry Ford knew exactly what he wanted and he wasn’t’ going to stop until he had it. In Napoleon Hill’s book, Think & Grow Rich , Persistence is the Eighth Step Towards Riches. He says that the “lack of persistence is one of the major causes of failure.” “Without persistence, you will be defeated, even before you start. With persistence you will win.”

To be successful we need to know exactly what we want and have a plan to attain it. We have to be willing to learn from our failures along the way and adjust our plan. But most of all, we need persistence. Without persistence, when we are faced with defeat we will quite. With persistence, we will pick ourselves up and keep on trying. And Win!